I discuss how I overcame my--well, not fear, but blankness--in reading Chant in another post, but it inspired another thought.

New people should not be intimidated by the Colloquium--everyone who runs it is very supportive and wonderful in every way, and the classes are completely worth everything it took for you to get there.

But also, don't let anyone rain on your parade. WHATEVER bit you can do to improve the quality of Church music is blessed work. A Chant teacher from Solesmes itself has been quoted as telling directors to have the musicians who can sightread teach the ones who can't.

If you plonk away at the piano and learn a single Chant melody properly, and your little four-person volunteer choir does it for the Offertory, then you have done something wonderful. If it turns out you can sightread, that much the better.

Whatever group you are in and whatever the subject, there is ALWAYS someone who is going to pull his handkerchief out of his sleeve, dab his forehead, and go on about how the TRUE art of this or that has been lost, the kind of person who, instead of saying, 'Good job!," says, "Well, you tried your best, I guess." They are rare, but they are there--in every endeavor of any kind I have ever undertaken. If you are unfortunate enough to find yourself talking to someone like that, switch the topic of conversation and find an excuse to leave. There are always TONS more nice people.

And, yes, people on other fora have complained that this forum is obscure and sometimes hostile, so I append Rafael Cardinal Meery du Val's Litany of Humility. This fall, I was being ignored/passed over at work in areas that I took pride in, and prayed it every day.

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved...
From the desire of being extolled ...
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
From the fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...

That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…